Tag: calling your muse

How many times have you started a story and gotten stuck partway through? You hit that wall and just don’t know where to go from there? Or maybe you write your way into a corner and don’t know how to get yourself out. Or you get all the way through to the revision process and find you have plot holes you don’t know how to fix?

You’re not alone.

I’m always exploring new ways to improve my own writing skills. Lately, I’ve been going through some courses created by author Patti Larsen on writing and outlining. (Yes, I just mentioned the dreaded outlining… which I happen to enjoy, thank you very much.) Patti is a prolific author and she’s come up with some pretty handy tips to avoid these pitfalls. Check out her site if you want and see for yourself.

But back to my topic. There are ways to court your muse. Being organized, as Patti suggests, is one of them. I find that is often one of my own problems when I write. I spend all day editing for clients (for whom I’m very grateful!), and by the time I get to work on my own writing, my brain feels rather scattered. I re-read what I’ve got so far, go over my notes, and basically have to start from scratch every time. By the time I do all the catch up, I’m tired and it’s time for bed, so I don’t get much writing done. That’s why I picked up her courses. I wanted to enhance my own organization skills so I could skip all the catch up and just get to writing. I figured there must be methods to keep my muse engaged to fit my limited writing time.

If you’re not into outlining, maybe you’re an imagery person. If images speak to you, perhaps keeping images handy (Scrivener lets you keep a file of images or other references in the same file you’re writing in) will help. When I was writing Titanic Deception with my husband John, I found it helpful to look up reference images. I had blueprints of the Titanic, photos of several of the state rooms, the dining rooms, the decks… photos of some of the key players who were on the ship, that sort of thing. I looked up information on clothing of the era, I looked up menus for the modern part of the story, chatspeak translation, bomb defusing, and all sorts of things. I could keep all this information handy for when I needed inspiration. That helped keep my muse at my side.

It helped me to have a sounding board. John provided that. Since he was the main idea guy on our team, we spent countless hours going over plot lines, ironing out wrinkles that caused me writing angst, and working out physical actions so I could describe them with words.

So, what do you do to keep your muse at hand? Please share your tips in the comments!

Apologies for being missing in action last week. A pesky spider bit me on a crucial finger and it got infected, greatly affecting my typing abilities due to pain and swelling. Went to the doctor and have been on antibiotics since. It’s finally beginning to look like it’s responding and I’m almost back to normal. Thank you for your kind patience!